An absent-minded professor's blog.

Beastly (2011 film)

I love fairy tales!

Sometimes I enter the movie houses without knowing what to watch. I just randomly pick a title. (And I don’t blog about all of them either.) With this particular film, it was the poster that got me intrigued. I was to find out later that this was actually based on a book of the same name and it was based on the fairy tale classic, Beauty and the Beast.

I couldn’t have missed that, of course, because Beastly feels so much like an older teen’s Disney movie. The characters’ personalities are so exaggerated, they’re almost cartoon-y. I could almost hear myself sing, “There’s something sweet and almost kind, but he was mean and he was course and unrefined!” It had all the elements of the fairy tale (roses, gardens, books, Beauty’s sick father) neatly wrapped in fine, modern-day trimmings and topped with a beautiful Neil Patrick Harris. Hehe. I’m sorry, anything that has to do with NPH (who plays the Beast’s tutor), I would have to adore.

I’m sure critics have already killed this one with negative reviews and I’m going to be the naysayer once again when I declare that I absolutely love this contemporary retelling of a timeless tale. Plus, I think Vanessa Hudgens and Alex Pettyfer are both amazingly pretty. You also can’t lose with Mary-Kate Olsen playing the witch (at least now we have a solid reason for why she enchanted the prince). Even when she’s supposed to look like an ugly outcast, you just can’t lose with all those glorious ramp-ready outfits. You’d have to see it for yourself — she’s one heck of a fashionable witch!

Most importantly: I was kilig all throughout the viewing.

I’m mababaw that way.

Whatever the critics’ beef with Beastly, well, for me, it did what it had to do. And I wouldn’t mind watching it over and over as its title now belongs to my pile of feel-good (a.k.a. don’t-intellectualize-everything) movies. I’m downloading the Kindle edition (authored by Alex Flinn) as soon as my budget permits. (Since I just spent about 3K on Kindle purchases last week.) Heh.

About The Author

Doc B is a crazy cat lady, a former behavioral scientist turned video game producer, and a full professor. She is an INFJ who is married to an INTJ software engineer. You can grab a copy of her book by clicking the book thumbnail below.